The effectiveness of snow cube throwing

learning model based on exploration

Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 1868, 050016 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4995143
Published Online: 04 August 2017

Nenden Mutiara Sari

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AIP Conference Proceedings 1868, 050016 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4995143 1868, 050016

© 2017 Author(s).
 The Effectiveness of Snow Cube Throwing Learning Model
Based on Exploration
Nenden Mutiara Sari

Doctoral Student Department of Mathematics Education, Faculty of Pascasarjana,

Indonesian Education University And Lecturer at Pasundan University
Jl Setiabudi No 1, Bandung, Jawa Barat, Indonesia

nenden.m.sari@gmail.com

Abstract. This study aimed to know the effectiveness of Snow Cube Throwing (SCT) and Cooperative Model in
Exploration-Based Math Learning in terms of the time required to complete the teaching materials and student engagement.
This study was quasi-experimental research was conducted at SMPN 5 Cimahi, Indonesia. All student in grade VIII SMPN
5 Cimahi which consists of 382 students is used as population. The sample consists of two classes which had been chosen
randomly with purposive sampling. First experiment class consists of 38 students and the second experiment class consists
of 38 students. Observation sheet was used to observe the time required to complete the teaching materials and record the
number of students involved in each meeting. The data obtained was analyzed by independent sample- t test and used the
chart. The results of this study: SCT learning model based on exploration are more effective than cooperative learning
models based on exploration in terms of the time required to complete teaching materials based on exploration and student
engagement.

INTRODUCTION
A scientific approach is an approach recommended in the curriculum prevailing in Indonesia at this time. Learning
through the scientific approach is believed to be the golden bridge attitude, skills and knowledge of students [1].
Learning to use a scientific approach is done through the process of observing, asking, reasoning, trying, associating
and communicating. Exploration approach is part of a scientific approach that has the same characteristics. Because
it has the same characteristics, then the purpose of learning by exploration approach is not much different from learning
the scientific approach. Exploration leads to the discovery, exploration of a problem can cause a person to understand
the structure and its consequences [9]. Through exploration activities, students are invited to find a mathematical
concept such as the process of discovery by experts. This process will train students to draw conclusions from the
conjectures produced during the exploration activities. The result of the students will better remember the knowledge
learned, compared to students gained direct knowledge from the teacher. This is in line with what Confucius says, is:
"I hear and I remember, I do and I understand" [10]. However, to implement this approach in the learning process
takes a long time compared to the conventional learning process. Please note that the duration of math lessons of junior
high school in Indonesia in one week is 200 minutes. The time was divided into two meetings where the first meeting
lasted 80 minutes and the second meeting lasted for 120 minutes. Most teachers consider that time is not sufficient to
implement learning with an exploration approach, so they prefer conventional learning in teaching mathematics. In
addition to time issues, student involvement in learning activities is also urgently needed. This will greatly affect the
attitude of students during learning. Students who are willing to engage in learning activities will benefit directly from
the learning process with an exploration approach. It is different with students who do not want to be involved in the
learning process, they will not feel any benefit during the learning process. In fact, the current learning process of
mathematics is still dominated by conventional learning where students gain direct knowledge from teachers. This
resulted in the students less independent in learning. Thus, it would be difficult to apply learning with an exploration
approach in the classroom, as learning with an exploration approach requires independence in learning. Based on the

The 4th International Conference on Research, Implementation, and Education of Mathematics and Science (4th ICRIEMS)
AIP Conf. Proc. 1868, 050016-1–050016-6; doi: 10.1063/1.4995143
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1548-5/$30.00

050016-1
problem, the learning process with exploration approach will not feel effective without the aid of learning model. This
study will compare the two pursuits. The first lesson is snow cube throwing learning based on exploration and the
second learning is cooperative learning based on exploration. In what follows we first explain what are student
engagement, after the which we look at snow cube throwing models. Then, we discuss a series of studies we conducted,
in the which we used snow cube throwing models to solve that. Finally, we formulate some general conclusions
concerning the use of snow cube throwing in the mathematics classroom.

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
The theory of engagement is based on motivation and the idea that when students find the lesson meaningful and
have a high level of interest in the tasks, they learn more effectively. Lack student engagement in the learning process
greatly affects student achievement, student behavior at school to lead to some students who have left school [2]; [3];
[4]. Student engagement in instructional activity is constructed as a factor containing four component measures:
student effort (In social studies / mathematics class, how often do you try as hard as you can?); attentiveness (how
often do you pay attention in this class?); lack of boredom in class (often I feel bored in this class, [reversed]); and
completing class assignments (About how often do you complete your assignments for this class?)[5].

SNOW CUBE THROWING MODEL

Snow cube throwing is a development of the learning model Snowball Throwing. There are some differences
between the two models of learning. If the media throwing snowball learning model used is the paper made to resemble
a ball [6], whereas in the snow cube throwing learning model is a cube of media used. The cubes were used in the
study is a cube made of duplex paper and consists of 6 pieces explore questions with contextual issues in accordance
with the number of sides of the cube. Another difference is, the learning model snowball throwing the problems done
by the students is made by the students themselves while in the snow cube throwing learning model issues done by
the students designed by the teacher. Math problems in this study consist of the issue of exploration with contextual
problems. One of the similarities of both the learning model is in throwing activities.
The snow cube throwing learning model is intended to make students more interested and has a lot of experience
learning problems contextual exploration and all the students in the class are involved in learning activities in a
pleasant atmosphere. With this model in one learning students can learn a concept with different types of problems
that contextual exploration. For example, if a class consists of 40 students it takes 20 cubes for learning activities take
place since each group consists of two people. If a concept is presented in five exploration problems then there will
be 4 cube that has the same problem of exploration. Although the question of exploration quite a lot, but most of the
students are not aware of it because of the 5 issues that exploration is done by 20 groups and it is no less important, in
this study almost all of the students can be involved directly in the learning activities.
During the learning activities, students can practice many contextual questions in a pleasant atmosphere. Students
will compete with other groups to answer the questions as much as possible so that there was a positive competition
in the classroom. Students and a group of their friends can help each other in answering questions that are on the cube.
Teachers in this study only served as a facilitator if students ask about the poorly understood.

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 FIGURE 1. Cubes FIGURE 2. Snow Cube Throwing Learning
Activity

METHODS
This research was a quasi-experimental research, a study used to determine the average time required to complete
teaching materials and the average of student’s engagement number in learning activities. This study was conducted
at SMPN 5 Cimahi, Indonesia. The material in this study was circle. All student in grade VIII SMPN 5 Cimahi which
consists of 382 students is used as population. The sample consists of two classes which had been chosen randomly
with purposive sampling. First experiment class was VIII A which consists of 38 students and the second experiment
class was VIII B which consists of 38 students. This study used two variables: independent variables and dependent
variables. The independent variables are Snow Cube Throwing (SCT) learning model based on exploration and
Cooperative learning model based on exploration. The dependent variables in this study were times required to
complete teaching material and student engagement. In this study, both of class is given the same teaching materials.
In its implementation, this study lasted for four meetings.
This design was presented in the following table.
TABLE 1. Research design
First experiment class SCT learning model the time required to
(E1) based on exploration complete the teaching
materials
Second experiment class Cooperative learning the time required to
(E2) model based on complete the teaching
exploration materials
The non-test instrument was used in this study was observation sheet. Observation sheet was used to observe the
time required to complete the teaching materials and record the number of students involved in each meeting.
The data obtained was analyzed by making a description of the study results and the description of the data which
consisted of the early stage descriptions and the end stage descriptions. The early stages descriptions consisted of
normality and homogeneity tests. Normality test was performed by using the Shapiro-Wilk test with a significance
level α = 0.0. The homogeneity test was performed by using the Leven’s with α = 0.05. The end stage description was
hypothesis test. The comparison between two models test was performed using independent sample t-test. The
difference average test between two classes had been done to determine whether SCT learning model need more times
to complete teaching materials than cooperative learning or not. This test has been done using independent sample t
test before the comparison test. The learning model would be effective in terms of the time required to complete the
teaching materials more less. Effective learning model in terms of the student engagement was when the number of
students who engage in learning activities was more than 90%.

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 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
During the learning activities by using two types of models, students get the same teaching materials based on
exploration. The difference lies in how the presentation of instructional materials. In the SCT model learning materials
designed such that the issues presented can be divided into six stages. This is done as adjusted by the amount of side
contained in a cube of snow. In cooperative model learning students are also given teaching materials based on
exploration, but the presentation of the teaching material given in the paper. During the implementation of SCT
learning model based on exploration, students complete teaching materials together with another friend. So in SCT
learning model based on exploration, one group of students consisted of two people, whereas in cooperative learning
based on exploration, one group of students consists of four people.

Times Required to Complete Teaching Materials

The average time taken in completing the SCT grade students teaching materials during the four meetings was
188, 21 minutes, whereas cooperative grade students were 241 minutes. The maximum time that it takes 1 group of
students in the class to complete the resource SCT is 210 minutes, meaning that the average time required maximum
grade students in one meeting SCT was 52.5 minutes cooperative classroom where students spend more time at 70,25
minutes. The complete data of times required to complete teaching materials are shown in Table 2.
TABLE 2. Data of times spent to complete teaching materials
Description SCT Class Cooperative Class
Mean 188,21 241
Maximum 210 281
Minimum 169 208
SD 14,101 22,035
Variance 198,842 485,556
For each number of SCT based on exploration groups and cooperative based on exploration groups less than 30,
then we will use the Shapiro-Wilk test to determine the normality of the data either group. Based on the output test of
normality, the significant value for the group throwing snow cube of 0.104, while the value of significance for the
exploration group at 0.890. Due to the significance of the group nails throwing snow cube and greater exploration of
> 0.05, it can be concluded that the data amount of time required to complete the normal distribution of teaching
materials. Data normality test results can be seen in the table below:
TABLE 3. Test of normality
Tests of Normality
Kolmogorov-Smirnova Shapiro-Wilk
Class Statistic df Sig. Statistic df Sig.
The time 1 .164 19 .191 .918 19 .104
required 2 .158 10 .200* .970 10 .890
*. This is a lower bound of the true significance.
a. Lilliefors Significance Correction

After the data known to both groups of the normal distribution, the next step is to test the homogeneity of the data.
Based on the above note SPSS output that significant value is based on a class variable time 0.314> 0.05, meaning
that the time variable data based group has the same variant. After testing normality and homogeneity of data, it is
known that both normal and homogeneous distribution group. To determine the difference in the average time taken
by the two groups in completing the teaching materials can be done by using the average difference between two
independent samples. Notice the output of Independent Sample T-Test, Based on the above output obtained by the
Sig. (2-tailed) of 0.000 <0.05, then the appropriate basis for a decision in independent sample t-test, it can be concluded
that Ho refused and Ha is received, which means that the average time required SCT grade students in completing the
teaching materials is less than the average time it takes Cooperative grade students. test results of independent sample
t-test can be seen in the following table:

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 TABLE 4. Independent Samples Test
Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test for t-test for Equality of Means
Equality of
Variances
F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed)
The time Equal variances assumed 1.052 .314 -7.875 27 .000
required
Equal variances not -6.871 12.996 .000
assumed

The test results showed that the SCT learning model based on exploration is more effective in terms of time than
the implementation of cooperative learning model based on exploration. reduced time needed to solve the instructional
materials brought two positive impacts in the learning activities. The first impact, the learning objectives with a
scientific approach can be delivered in accordance with the purpose of curriculum 2013. The second impact, the
remaining time give more opportunities for students to practice more mathematic problems. This gives the advantage
to the students to reproduce the experience in working on different types of matter. This result can be considered the
teachers in implementing the scientific approach to the SCT learning model.
As for the factors, identified cause SCT grade students takes less time than cooperative graders are competitiveness
student to earn the highest points. Through competitiveness, students become more focused and motivated in
completing the teaching materials as soon as possible. Therefore, these factors have a positive impact on the
implementation of the exploration-based learning activities. As with the cooperative model, there are no factors that
could make the students motivated in understanding the teaching materials, so that students tend to seem lazy and
bored in their implementation. This led to the implementation of cooperative learning model based on exploration
requires more time than SCT learning model based on exploration.

Student Engagement
To determine the number of students involved in learning activities, researchers calculated a lot of students who
are not engaged in learning activities. The results of the observations that have been made show the following table:
TABLE 5. Data of student engagement in learning activity
Experiment class Meeting 1 Meeting 2 Meeting 3 Meeting 4
Snow cube throwing class 1 2 2 3
Exploration class 7 11 14 14

Based on observation the results in Table 3, the number of students who are not engaged in learning activities with
SCT learning model based on exploration less than the number of students who are not involved in cooperative
learning model based on exploration. Things that affect these results are of interest and the interest of students for
learning. In the implementation of SCT student compete with other students to complete a teaching material in each
cube by throwing a cube process. This activity is considered of interest to students because they can learn while
playing. Renskers said that playful learning activities can increase the interest of students during the learning process
[7]. Interest and pleasure, both affect the level of student engagement in learning and the depth of understanding will
be obtained [8]. Another case with cooperative learning model can be, students are grouped into 10 groups, each group
consisting of 4 or 3 people. This looks less effective because two or one people from each group is usually not involved
in learning activities. Nevertheless, there are other factors that make students less interested in the cooperative learning
process, including the selfish attitude of intelligent students who wish to complete their own teaching materials without
willing to share knowledge with other students. This led to another student being bored and not interested in learning.
In addition, students are less intelligent tend to rely on a clever student in charge of teaching materials. A number of
students involved in learning activities presented in the charts below:

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 Student Engagement
40

30

20

10

0
Meeting 1 Meeting 2 Meeting 3 Meeting 4

Snow Cube Throwing Class Exploration class

FIGURE 3. Student Engagement Chart

CONCLUSIONS
SCT learning model is more effective to used in based on exploration learning than cooperative learning model in
terms of time and students engagement. In the SCT learning model time required students to complete the teaching
materials based on exploration are less than cooperative learning model based on exploration. Other results showed
that the implementation of SCT learning model is more effective used in based on exploration learning than
cooperative learning model based on exploration in terms of the number of students engaged in learning activities.
Students are engaged in learning activities with SCT learning model based on exploration more than the number of
students involved in cooperative learning model based on exploration.

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years. American educational research journal, 37(1), 153-184, (2000).
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